Google defeats RNC lawsuit claiming email spam filters harmed Republican fundraising
By Mike Scarcella
July 31 (Reuters) -A U.S. judge has thrown out a Republican National Committee lawsuit accusing Alphabet's Google of intentionally misdirecting the political party's email messages to users' spam folders.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta in Sacramento, California, on Wednesday dismissed the RNC’s lawsuit for a second time, and said the organization would not be allowed to refile it.While expressing some sympathy for the RNC's allegations, he said it had not made an adequate case that Google violated California’s unfair competition law.
The lawsuit alleged Google had intentionally or negligently sent RNC fundraising emails to Gmail users' spam folders and cost the group hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential donations. Google denied any wrongdoing.
Google had no immediate comment, and lawyers for the RNC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Calabretta, an appointee of U.S. President Joe Biden, said in the ruling that the RNC's allegations of political discrimination if true “are certainly concerning and may have wide and severe implications for the future of political discourse.” But he said the lawsuit did not meet its burdens under the laws it cited.
Calabretta last year dismissed the RNC’s lawsuit but allowed the group to file an amended complaint.
RNC in its amended lawsuit provided additional factual assertions “to make it at least plausible that Google acted without good faith,” Calabretta said. He said Google was not entitled to claim immunity under a provision of federal law that shields internet companies from liability for the content posted to their platforms.
The judge noted that the RNC’s emails were not diverted to users' spam folders after the group filed its lawsuit in late 2022.
Google had argued that individual email users were marking the group’s emails as spam,leading to others being automatically labeled at such.
The case is Republican National Committee v. Google LLC, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, No. 2:22-cv-01904.
For RNC: Harmeet Dhillon of Dhillon Law Group; Thomas McCarthy of Consovoy McCarthy
For Google: Abdul Kallon, Sunita Bali and Michael Huston of Perkins Coie
Read more:
Google defeats Republican National Committee's spam filter lawsuit in US court
Google hires law firm Perkins Coie to fight RNC's spam filter lawsuit
Reporting by Mike Scarcella
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